


Five Years

by subtextual_silver_linings



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Confrontation, First Kiss, Fluff, Intensity, Johnlock - Freeform, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-TFP, the kiss, violin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9125449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtextual_silver_linings/pseuds/subtextual_silver_linings
Summary: Sherlock returns to 221B after the already infamous 'I love you' and soon finds himself in the company of a doctor who very much wants to make some things inherently clear to him.[Possibly to be extended if well-received. Post-TFP, but obviously using a fair amount of assumption considering we haven't even seen the episode yet!]





	

“Five years ago.”

And, just like that, silence falls. Movement ceases. The bow refrains from its drawing across strings, muscles tightening and fingers pausing, Sherlock’s chest rising and falling in the same steady rhythm even though he’s not entirely sure how, when his heart is suddenly emitting bass notes louder than the treble he’d been weaving through the air just seconds prior.

His sharp, narrowed gaze falls on the hazy reflection in the window opposite him, and he waits.

He’s used to waiting, now.

“It’s quite a space of time, I know, but... well, I’ve been thinking about it.” John is slipping the coat from his shoulders, not looking towards the man silhouetted against the window with a violin perched on his shoulder as he shakes the rain from the somewhat soaked material and throws it unceremoniously to the floor. Sherlock observes, but makes no deductions. Now isn’t the time. “Because it’s five years ago today - did you know that? I know it’s not exactly the sort of anniversary you celebrate, your first suicide, but...”

Sherlock watches silently as John looks up and away from the coat, searches the misted window from afar until he meets Sherlock’s eyeline; it’s too far to read his expression, too dark, but Sherlock isn’t looking to find answers in such a frail attempt at eye-contact. That can wait, too.

After all, John is talking. And Sherlock owes John that.

“It’s quite funny, really - well, not funny. Doesn’t exactly make me want to laugh.”

Sherlock can’t quite tell from here, but he’s relatively certain that John’s hair is damp. He fights the instinct to grab the same towel he had recently used to dry his own ridiculous mop of hair and throw it at the doctor, because he’s quite confident that it’s the wrong moment. Perhaps in a minute. When John has finished.

“But that it’s today, of all days. Kind of coincidental, maybe.”

Slowly, Sherlock allows the hand holding the bow to fall to his side; he leaves the violin, though. It’s oddly comforting, settled against his shoulder, the weight of an old friend.

“It fits, though. I’ve had a few hours to think about it, plus, of course, the five years before all of this. Because I did think of it, which I’m sure you already know. Seeing as you know everything.”

He fights the urge to snort - clearly he _doesn’t_ know everything. He didn’t know, for instance, that John would come home tonight. He had thought... well, it didn’t really matter what he had thought now. He’d been proven wrong, and not for the first time in recent days, so he had the sense to simply wait and see where it would take them.

Not that it made sense. Not when his fingers had started to tremble against the strings and his heart had started picking up speed to the point where he wondered if the sheer force of adrenaline had ever been known to kill a man.

The answer was probably in his Mind Palace somewhere. It could wait.

John was taking a few steps forward - soft steps, always soft, John didn’t know how soft he was but Sherlock did. For an ex-solider, he had always surprised Sherlock with quite how soft he was.

He stopped his progression after three and a half paces, lingering by his chair but not sitting.

Sherlock could just about make out the sudden clenching of John’s fists.

So. Sentiment was coming. He forces himself not to turn and face it head on. The adrenaline may think it knew best, but he was slowly learning to trust other instincts. Like the one that told him he wasn’t quite ready to face John.

John’s voice mirrors the softness of his approach. “I went to see my therapist after you died.” He pauses, the silence pressing intimately against the fact that Sherlock had in fact _not_ died, but neither of them corrected the mistake. John had, after all, lived those two years of believing otherwise. It was a moot point. “And she... was... _determined_ to make me talk about it. You know how, when you thought Irene Adler was dead, I kept pressing you? Trying to get you to talk about your feelings?”

Sherlock’s head jerks irritably to the side, not seeing how The Woman had anything to do with the conversation. She was nothing. This was... well. Considerably _not_ nothing.

“Well, all right, not quite the same, but that’s sort of my point. Imagine someone trying to push you into talking about that loss, but then... multiply it by about ten thousand. And then again. And again.”

The ebb and flow of John’s breathing became shallow, uneven for a moment. It makes Sherlock want to turn around even more, nothing to do with adrenaline this time; he compromises, letting the arm wielding his violin to slide to his side instead. Preparing himself, though for what he wasn’t entirely sure.

“It might have been all right, if she’d just stuck to trying to walk me through the grief, the anger, but something... _something_ made me say it. So bloody stupid, letting yourself actually be vulnerable in front of your therapist -” John’s laugh is throaty, full, amusement laced with something far deeper and far more painful to hear, “- but I said it.”

It. _It._ What was _it_?

Sherlock doesn’t realise he’s spoken aloud until he sees reflection-John fold his arms and shake his head; damn. He’d failed. This was _John’s_ turn to speak.

And speak he does. “Bit of a stupid question, really, mate.” He clears his throat. “ _Sherlock_. Though I suppose not really, considering I didn’t say what I was _supposed_ to say, then and now. I just... insinuated. Like we do, you and I.”

_You and I._

Sherlock clenches his fingers tight around the neck of his violin.

_You and I._

“I said to her, after she managed to make me angry - she was good at that, passive-aggressively antagonising a response out of me. I probably don’t pay her enough.” Sherlock can hear the slight smile in John’s voice, relishes in it, relishes in the odd twist of normalcy in such an abnormal conversation. John’s never really spoken about this before, this determinedly hidden point in his life, and Sherlock knows its basis lays within a point the doctor has yet to make. The thought makes him tense up all over again, almost missing John’s next jumble of words. “I said to her... I told her...”

An intake of breath. A steadying of emotions.

“I told her that there were things... things I wanted...” Another intake of breath, this time sharper, and it takes everything that Sherlock has within him not to turn on his heel and stride over to John, get on his knees, gather the man’s hands within his own and command that he keep his words to himself, tell him that he doesn’t need to hear this if it causes John pain to say it. The ache to physically comfort the man standing behind him was suffocating. “There were things I wanted to say to you. Before. Before you jumped, before the phone call, before...”

John’s voice breaks, and Sherlock drops his violin - drops it, doesn’t care, doesn’t give one damn about the expensive piece of wood, nor the clattering it makes upon hitting the floor - and reaches out to support himself upon the window because otherwise he’s going to give in, otherwise he’s not going to allow John to finish his soliloquy and he’ll have _failed_ him. He bows his head and he knows John will understand, will feel his sorrow and regret from across the room, because John always knows, and he only hopes his friend will be stronger than he currently is.

He hears the light footsteps approaching before he can even realise his hope is a foolish one. He doesn’t need to look around to know there’s a hand stretching out toward him, John reaching out --

“Don’t comfort me, I beg of you.”

When he speaks it’s raw, hoarse from restraining himself from speech - he’s sickened with himself, utterly full of loathing. John, spilling his emotions, and Sherlock, unable to control his own in the wake of them: weakness, such weakness, and now John - John, who should be comforted, not Sherlock - is reaching out to soothe _him_.

Sherlock reaches out behind him in a similar gesture, though it’s a request to stay away rather than to make contact.

“Forgive me, John. Don’t come any closer.”

John’s voice sounds far too similar to Sherlock’s own vulnerable timbre, and it squeezes deep inside of Sherlock’s chest to have such a tone so close to him. “Sherlock...?”

“You stand there, speaking of... loss, of grief, of immeasurable pain which I have yet to even come close to making up for and yet I’ve somehow manipulated you into believing that I’m the one who needs support. I repeat, don’t come any closer and - for the love of god - don’t try to comfort me.”

He can almost _feel_ the strength of John’s battle, the fight to stop from ignoring Sherlock’s request, and he knows it with such inherent intimacy from his own longing that he feels a tremor rock through his body at the combined desire from them both: it’s agony. There is a reason, he now knows, why Mycroft had always been so vehemently against the concept of empathy and all of the dangers it posed within such close quarters, and Sherlock’s own personal reason is now poised on the edge of both touching him and moving away and he cannot stand it, will absolutely falter, will completely destroy the inward promise he made to himself to allow John to have his moment --

“Turn around.”

Sherlock feels his lips curve into a smile which is nothing to do with amusement. “I wish I could, John, but, no. I need a moment, if you wouldn’t mind.”

_**You** need a moment? Didn’t you just berate yourself for not allowing John to have his?_

John’s reply mirrors his own thoughts, though in such a way that was far more John-like and therefore infinitely harder to ignore. “Well, _I_ need you to turn around. Look at me.”

Eyes drifting tightly shut, Sherlock bites his lower lip. Hard.

“Sherlock, look at me. Now.”

Damn it all. He’s using his ‘ _Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers_ ’ voice, and that would be enough to shake any man’s resolve. Slowly, slow enough that he catches John’s reflection-gaze one last time in the now heavily condensated window, Sherlock pushes himself away from the glass and turns on the spot to finally - upon command - face John. Face the words he had spoken hours earlier. Face reality.

Face the elephant in the room.

John’s hand falls gently to his side. His eyes, despite the small smile playing on his lips, are guarded. “There. Was that so hard?”

Sherlock can feel his own defenses rising, yet he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want that at all. Not now. This is the wrong moment for defenses - _every_ moment was the wrong moment for defenses with John Hamish Watson, and if he was to do nothing but this tonight, he would keep them down and away for the length of their communication. He must. He absolutely _must_.

And he must answer. Truthfully.

“You’ll have to be more specific.” Swallowing hard, Sherlock realises he’s still holding the bow in his right hand. Keeping his eyes fixed on John, he bends carefully at the knee and places it on the floor before straightening back to his full height and realigning himself to deliver his words properly. “Are you referring to me turning around, or... or perhaps...”

He can’t say it. Damn, damn, fuck, he can’t say it.

John reads this. Sherlock can see the quick processes of realisation flickering in the haze of blue within John’s eyes, and he marvels - possibly for the first time ever - at the rapidity of John’s understanding. Perhaps there were different sorts of genius, and John simply happened to be a different breed to Sherlock.

The thought of there being something which set them apart from one another sparks a thread of unwanted fear directly down his spine.

John seemingly has no fear now. His shoulders set themselves back, chin lifting in apparent confidence, though Sherlock isn’t entirely convinced. “Well, is there any point in beating around the bush anymore?”

 _Run. Run from this place and don’t look back_.

Sherlock’s body poises instinctively for flight.

John doesn’t miss a thing. His eyes harden again and, with almost awe-inspiring authority, he takes a step forward and closes a rather large portion of the gap between them: Sherlock can feel, now, the body heat emanating from the smaller man and, within an instant, he feels the magnetic force between them flip - suddenly his chances of leaving the room have settled to _zero_ , and whether he likes it or not, he knows that everything is about to change and that he won’t do a thing to stop it.

John reads this, too.

“Good. I didn’t want to have to wrestle you to the ground.”

Sherlock’s lips separate, a breath stolen from them without his permission. _John, wrestling him to the ground. John, on top of him. John, initiating physical contact._

John’s voice slips through the sudden haze of combined panic and anticipation. “You said it first. So.”

The heat which Sherlock thought was coming from John seems to be coming from within _himself_ now, caressing over his skin and making him tingle in a way he’s never experienced before; he barely suppresses the oxymoron of a shiver which is now determinedly making its way across his entire system, his hands beginning to tremble, eyes suddenly tearing themselves away from John’s iron-hot stare --

Clarity clicks; his gaze zeroes in on John’s lips.

John’s lips move.

Sherlock comes undone.

“I love you, too.”

John’s hands reaching forward, hesitating for just a moment before resting upon the solid plane of Sherlock’s chest.

_Can he feel how hard my heart beats for him?_

“And I’ve been waiting for the right time to say that...”

Sherlock’s eyes flicker down one final time to John’s lips.

“... for five fucking years.”

At which point Sherlock Holmes finally closes the distance between them and tentatively, bravely dips his head and brushes his dry, trembling lips to John Watson’s, heart pounding wildly beneath his chest as his kiss, his love, his ardent and unforgiving _adoration_  is returned to him in the softest of pressures.

Fingers reach up and tangle into his damp curls.

Holding tight.

_No letting go._


End file.
